Political Quotes

“I appreciate your bringing to my attention, and we discussed the second sentence, which you just read regarding the more restrictive. When he refers to the more restrictive, he simply refers to the fact that they would have to go to the FISA Court for approval of such intercept as they want, and that would be within the, of course, authority within 72 hours to act and then get approval after the fact, which is why I indicated that Admiral McConnell had said that the backlog had been eliminated. You recall previous testimony, or comments, that one of the officials who dealt with these in the administration indicated that, and the court could, frankly, within minutes, give approval in many situations, and now that the backlog has been eliminated, it is correct, it would be more restrictive, it would have to go to the court, but that, of course, is what was contemplated in 1978. We do not believe that that would in any substantial way slow down the process and, therefore, not in any way put us at risk. Having said all of that, we still agree with you that if we can get this done in a timely fashion that would be good.”